Members of the PA Region 13 Counter-terrorism Task Force trained with two three-dimensional laser scanners Monday and Tuesday in PNC Park.
“Those are not models. Those are reality,” Lukas Duruttya, an employee with DiCarlo Precision Instrument Inc. in Maryland who helped conduct the training, said of images the scanner produced of suites in PNC Park.
The scanner is about the size of a video game console and sits on a tripod. It shoots out lasers that detect walls, doors, furniture and other objects in a room. The information collected is combined into a three-dimensional image displayed on a computer.
PA Region 13, a collaboration of 13 counties in Western Pennsylvania, purchased two cameras from DiCarlo Precision Instruments about a year ago, said Raymond DeMichiei, deputy director of the city's Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. The equipment and software cost about $130,000. A grant from the Department of Homeland Security paid for the scanners.
The PNC Park training session was the first time the scanners were used.
Computer software allows police to virtually walk through rooms and take measurements. DeMichiei said the scanners will be used to take photos of PNC Park, Heinz Field, Consol Energy Center, the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, water treatment plants and critical pieces of infrastructure or key resources. Federal authorities used similar technology to scan the convention center before the G-20 summit in 2009.
The photos will be catalogued and used if there is a terrorist or hostage incident. Police will be able to see what rooms and hallways look like before entering to conduct a rescue.
“They will have a good idea of where they are going,” DeMichiei said.
Police can scan the scene of a crime or crash and take measurements at the station on the computer. If a case goes to trial, attorneys can show the scans of crime scenes to the jury instead of taking the jury to the crime scene, said Nina DiCarlo, the company's general manager.
©2015 The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Greensburg, Pa.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
